


Blue's Anthology: On Timothy Jackson Drake

by Bluethursday



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Blue finally puts her shit on Ao3, Look these are mostly going to be DamiTim because that's my main ship., M/M, There will be other pairings too, but like...slowly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-08 04:09:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20305759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluethursday/pseuds/Bluethursday
Summary: A compilation of short stories regarding Tim Drake (from tumblr).Chapter 1:Tim is Damian's Grandmother.Chapter 2:Tim is the personification of Gotham and Bruce is involved with him.Chapter 3:Tim is closer to Bruce in age and a tattoo artist.Chapter 4:Tim is a tired Doctor, dealing with the Batfam.





	1. Dead and Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim is Damian's Grandmother. Why?...I don't know.

_ Dead_

Damian learns of love, despite all odds, despite past expectations, from his grandfather.

He is three years old, listening to an old man whispering of his beloved with such broken reverence, such adoration that he can not help but pay attention, his own gaze locked on his grandfather, a portrait of a man between them.

He is beautiful in his own way, and in all ways, all at once. He is beautiful the way snakes are. A cruel twist of his lips and a flash in his eyes. He is beautiful the way knives were when they were freshly sharpened, but in him there was something of Damian, something carried through in the blood, that no amount of manipulation could erase.

He fingers his own cheekbones and traces the ones that belong to the man. They are the same. There is something in the jut of the chin, he thinks and then stares for another moment or two before deciding that, yes, there was something there.

It was the same. There was something in the blood after all.

His grandfather watches him patiently, his own eyes tracing over the painted lines before he speaks, “I have had one great love in all my lifetimes Damian, a love I used to create your mother for I could bear no other to share the weight of my progeny.” There is a heavy silence between them, one fraught with the weight of confession, “It was not the wisest of my choices and much was…compromised…. but I have never regretted the paths I took.”

Damian learns what “compromised”, meant later on. Compromised meant that his mother was made with the blood of a man more than a century dead for his grandfather’s piece of mind. The blood of a man that was by all accounts save his grandfathers, mentally unstable at best and psychotic at worst. He does not place much truth in such words for the one who knew his grandmother best spoke only of kindness and an unmatched intelligence the likes of which no one could ever surpass.

His mother tells him that the image is that of his grandmother. She tells him this, with the cold speculation one assigns all facts. A graceful shrug of her shoulders concludes their talk and they speak of it no more, though questions spread through Damian’s mind like wildfire.

He wonders, under his father house, if she had been jealous of the devotion her grandfather displayed to his personal god.

Away from her he wears the image of his grandmother on his person at all times. Whether in locket form, or a slip of parchment, or a talisman in an approximation of his unknown relative. He keeps the image close as he can. A ward against all things, an all-cure of sorts for his peace of mind. His grandmother has always been the one he has he related to most in their family, for he sees something of himself in his grandfathers words. Something he wishes to be.

He sees less of himself in his father. He does not tell his mother.

“I imagined you taller.” He tells father. His mother had made the man into a god. He suspects his grandfather made a god into a man.

It is a different form of reverence. There is something sacred about his grandmother that his father, and his father’s mother do not carry. Martha Wayne was not the fey fairytale creature laying traps down in elaborate successions for a little peace of mind. For a game with the one they loved.

Martha was not the imp, the trickster, the petty, vicious, cruel, and hopelessly vulnerable Timothy. She did not hold an ounce of his elegance, of his brilliance, his sweetness, his brokenness, for nothing can be great without being broken in some way, and Timothy was so very great.

His father is a knight. His father is King Arthur sitting at the round table, tow headed and proud, proclaiming his honour for the world to see. His grandmother is extraordinarily human and inhuman in the same step, his fallacy just as spectacular as any deed done by a king. His grandmother, is Morgana and Mordred and Merlin. He is what Damian wishes to be when he grows up.

He does not tell his mother.

_ Alive_

There are rules in the House of Al Ghul that Damian learns to follow as soon as he is able, as his feet toddle through the guarded hallways.

The first, is that his grandmother is sacred. A deity in human skin and while his grandfather, in word, had control of the household, his grandmother held true power and with one casual twitch of a slender finger he could override any and all commands given by the head.

The second, is that his grandmother knew everything and if he wanted to get away with any trickery it was best to do things the elder would find amusing.

Childhood found Damian hiding between his grandmothers legs more often than not after acts of such mischief, or sprawling on the lap of the only family member given to cuddling of any kind. It was there that he learned to read and write, and throw a knife, his mother watching over the two bemused.

“Mother.” Talia would speak with a bemused huff.

Grandmother would smile and rock Damian in his arms just a tad more boisterously, “He is my grandchild and mine to spoil.” Twiddling his fingers in his daughters direction he would command, “Go amuse yourself or join in. I have no patience for your…watching.”

Talia would laugh and join most days. On others she would leave with a wave, and a shrug.

…

Muffling his face in the soft of his grandmothers belly, slender fingers carding through his hair Damian told him of his dissatisfaction with his lifein the League. His grandmother smelled of dark spices, tangy and sweet.

It was a smell he had long since associated with great comfort.

The voice that followed was much the same, “Will you go to your fathers house then, little one?”

Damian froze and nodded slowly, his grandmothers gut roiling under his face as the elder laughed and bopped him on the head lightly with the side of a closed fist.

“Silly boy,” The elder sighed, “Do what you will, but you will always have a place here by my side.”

“Grandfather…”Damian implied, staring up at the face of his dearest relative.

Tim raised a delicate eyebrow and tapped the younger one on the nose with one finger, “Your grandfather, has never denied me a thing. He will not deny me this habibi.”

Damian blushed at the endearment.

…

Dick gaped at the newest Robin, Jason not far behind him.

“What are you doing?” Dick asked as he watched the younger boy put on a full suit and readjust his bowtie seven times, and counting.

“All dressed up and no where to go princess?” Jason jeered. Dick elbowed him in the gut, though it was true. There was no occasion that would merit such dress.

“Heathens.” Damian scoffed, “The ninja are terrified. One urinated itself the other day when it though I could not see it. Grandmother is coming. Most likely today.”

“Grandmother?” Dick squeaked. Even Bruce set down his newspaper to stare at his youngest son.

Damian cursed as he fiddled with the bowtie yet again. It would do no good to greet the person he respected most in his god forsaken family with a crooked bowtie.

“Yes, you moron.” He muttered, “The spouse of my grandfather, the one who contributed in the making of my mother and her siblings. Otherwise known as my grandmother.”

“Ra’s wife is dead.” Bruce spoke.

Damian turned to look at his father and snorted. The message was clear.

_Shows what you know._

“Grandfather, has no wife. Furthermore he has never had a wife.” Damian added as he finally seemed to have made up the bowtie to his satisfaction.

The ninja kicked out one of the windows and rolled out a carpet. A thick Persian rug with an ornate pattern. A large armchair was then hefted into the centre. The minions retreated through the window.

Dick swore he could see one of the shaking.

“Honestly.” A voice spoke up, slipping through the recently evacuated window like a cat, “They have no manners whatsoever.”

Damian smiled, teeth and all,”Grandmother.” He greeted, rushing to embrace the figure. The insanely young, disturbingly attractive figure, who looked as though they weighed no more than a feather pillow.

“Who are you.” Bruce growled out, rising to his feet.

“Ah,” Tim sounded out, his eyes glaringly bright, “You must be bastard who left my daughter a single mother.”

Bruce examined the features of the one in front of him. Those lips, that stance, and most embarrassingly, those hips. He could see Talia in Tim. That stubborn chin, those cat like eyes.

Oh god.

Ra’s Al Ghul was a pedophile. That did not surprise him as much as it should have.

“You’re a child.” Bruce breathed out in shock.

Tim smiled, his eyes half lidded, Damian still burying his face in his stomach “I, father of my grandson, am over five hundred years old.”

“Are we staying here.” Damian gestured to the chair and Tim laughed, “Oh no. No we are not. The ninja are only bit jumpy about the last time I was left without a seat.”

Jason stared at the hot male grandma in front of him before recovering, “The hell did you do the last time you didn’t get a seat.”

Tim looked at him, and Jason suddenly wished he had never spoken a word, and that he was somewhere else, preferably Alaska. “Oh darling.” Tim purred, “It wasn’t what I did, no. It was what my dear husband did that made them jumpy.”

“And what did Ra’s do?” Jason pushed out bravely.

Tim turns his attention back on Damian, “Have they been kind to you habibi?” He asks.

Damian nods, nuzzling into the elders side like a kitten looking for some form of affection, “Yes grandmother.” He adds, sighing in contentment. He had missed the elder greatly.


	2. Gotham Is My Boyfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim is the personification of Gotham city and Bruce is involved with him.

PART ONE

The night air is thick with the same smog that once rolled through Gotham in its inception. At birth Gotham had been industrial, with a skeleton made of iron and steel. Rebar, and glass formed skyscrapers, all right angles and flat plains that stretched themselves in the futile hope of breaching some limit in the sky that only men could see.

Gotham was birthed in fire and dead immigrants, and grifters working without safety harnesses to build monuments to gods they never wanted to believe in. Its skyscrapers still have impressions of bodies buried under their steps and walkways. Its bones still have traces of blood from where the muscle was stripped bare in the butcher shop of Americana.

Gotham, city of the damned, Sodom and Gomorrah of the modern age. Gotham, which stood through the earthquake of 1928, which demolished the East side and the firestorm which burned the West in 42. This city is made of the winding streets more readily given to a much older more organic being. Gotham has spread its trails, and roads, and drives, like veins through the hodge-podge of alleyways and back doors. Even at birth it knew that its people could not live with the grid pattern so popular everywhere else. Its soul was far too old to match the bodies of the younger generation. Metropolis and the City of Star were grids. Gotham was a jungle before the Narrows ever formed.

Every street contained cracks and the cracks went down the subways rattling the carts and proving that the foundations were strong. That they would hold. That they _had_ held.

Gotham strong and proud, city of survivors who knew how to etch a living in an inhospitable environment. This city was not kind to outsiders but to its own it was brutal. This was the city of Joker, and Ivy, of corruption and death.

This was the city at the end of the world and its name was Timothy.

….

Timothy was born in fire and blood. Iron and rebar. Gotham was chosen for him, but Timothy he took for himself. He took it from the people, and from dark endless mass that he had come from. Unlike his predecessors he was not a toddler for long, his form growing fast and scars building faster. 256 years old, he was an infant to some, but he knew better. He knew what his city was made of and unlike the emptiness of the others, their bodies sleeping freeways and urban sprawl, he was alive.

He was rooted in foundation and sacrifice, and no fire could burn him out, nor could any cold freeze his presence. His people would always bring him back, support him. See him rise. He was a thing of greatness, austere, powerful and above all he was a city at war.

He was a city torn between crime and justice. Joker and Batman. Ivy and Robin. The Narrows and The Gotham Police.

Timothy was both that which raised Harvey Dent, and that which nurtured his champion.

Batman.

This city state had a favourite and those that said otherwise were filthy liars.

…

Bruce feels Gotham, for the first time in the cave. He feels it in the dark empty space beneath the manor as a thousand flying rodents rush at his person. He feels it like a laugh, a soft chuckle at the back of neck and for a lifetime he swears that he imagined it.

His lifetime ends when his parents fall to the ground his mothers pearls snatched from her neck trailing down into the gutters and he swears that he can feel the concrete shift beneath his feet, bouncing in time with each pearl. He convinces himself that he is seeing things. It takes another lifetime for him to breathe in the city air and understand.

…

Tim feels it when Bruce Wayne is born, one more flickering light in the back of his mind, one more being to cradle in his borders. He is soft in the way all children are, and tainted grey the way all children born in Gotham are. It is seconds for him before he notices the child again, screaming in the pits of a cave. He laughs. For the first time in a long time, someone is poking around in his stomach and it tickles. It feels like feathers across his ribs.

….

The air tastes wrong outside of Gotham. This is what Bruce notices. It’s too thin to breathe in properly and nothing coats his lungs, no pollutants or smoke leave their residue inside him. How is he to know that he’s still breathing if he can’t feel it? If every breath doesn’t take something from him.

He thinks that everyone else must be doing something wrong, because their air was noxious as their lives.

….

Tim notices Bruce leave. One little light pushing past boundaries and he feels him move, crossing borders and state lines. Bruce is Gotham. Old Gotham blood from an Old Gotham family. His ancestor was there as the ribbon was cut when the city opened and Tim…never forgets one of his own.

Bruce, only living member of the Wayne’s, could leave from Timothy as he pleased but he would never be anything but part of Gotham. Too much of him had been taken and Tim always hated ceding his people to the other lands. There’s a reason he’s never done so.

…

Bruce, once Batman, spends two months going crazy. The shadows hide him when they shouldn’t, when they _should not _stretch so far or so wide. The gutters, and alleyways ensure that he is never found and he always, _always_ has a way out.

The streets are moving from underneath his feet, the houses curving for him and he swears that he’s lost his mind, that he’s personifying inanimate things and that this magical thinking of his, this belief that Gotham…approved was going to get him killed.

_I do, you know. I approve._

The voices were of no help either.

_I’m plenty of help. If it wasn’t for me Gordon would have caught you a lifetime ago._

There was a word for this kind of crazy, but Bruce had yet to find it.

_Hmft. You were cuter when you wore short pants and ran around trying to play Sherlock. Alfred made a horrible Watson._

Clearly his mind had established a secondary personality which claimed to be the city of Gotham. He had not believed himself to be prone to disassociation but he had not believed himself to be prone to dressing as a giant Bat, and fighting crime at one point either.

….

Tim does not really know when that one light became important. Perhaps it was when Bruce donned the cowl. Perhaps it was when he gave his other favourite a sense of purpose, and Jack had always seen him, the parts of him that were hidden. In secret ways Jack loved him and in secret ways Tim loved him back.

_Hey Jackie, are you feeling alright today?_

“Just fine peaches.” Replied the clown, his hands deftly putting together a dirty bomb.

I secret ways Jack hated Tim.

“I swear I’ll burn this city to the ground.”

Tim does not know when Bruce became so important, so wonderful, but he knows that he wants the man to live.

…

At some point Bruce starts believing.

“I need help.” He asks the dark and the dark…

_Darling, I thought you’d never ask._

Replies.

_No one is going to see a thing, not tonight._

It becomes habit. Second nature. Bruce breathes Gotham into his lungs and he does not exhale. He can feel the city in his bloodstream, in his marrow. He hates leaving this city, hates leaving that mellow cool voice that sounds like trains and coughs and acid rain.

He feels wrong everywhere else.

….

_You could call me Tim. _The voice tells him, cool and insidious as all secret things must be.

“Why would I do that?” Bruce replies.

_Because it’s my name._

…

_You jumped off Wayne Tower, with no glider. Congratulations you are officially a moron._

“It was a carefully calculated -

_You can carefully calculate how you’re going to make it up to me._

Bruce frowns, a furrow appearing between his brows, “Wayne Enterprises will begin funding a new monorail.”

_Damn straight and while you’re at it fix the cracks in Main Street they’re starting to look ugly._

Bruce doesn’t bother resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

….

Years later when Superman tells Bruce he’s married to Gotham, Bruce smiles dark and cruel.

_Of course you are,_ Tim croons.

PART TWO 

There are ends to Tim’s domain, trails that burn beneath his metaphorical eyelids. The city is endless. Gotham is everything.

_Bruce,_ Tim whispers,_ come home._

He has his fingers splayed over every inch of land, but in _this_ he is blind. Another planet is far way from his aegis and the Bat is not home. For the very first time, he cannot feel one of his own. Bruce’s light has not gone out with his end, it has faded into nothing instead. He has never felt this before, and the ground shivers as he waits.

_Come home, come home, come home._

_Come back to me._

….

It is not the first time he’s left Gotham but it’s the first time he’s left the planet. To his right stands Superman, his left is guarded by Wonder Woman. He has never been this alone. He has never been empty like this, hollow like this. He does not question how deeply Gotham, Tim, is imbedded under his skin…he knows.

If the air in different cities was enough to choke him, another planet nearly brings him to his knees. He began his mission in the memory of his parents but he will finish it for Tim because he cannot imagine a world without Gotham.

He will burn with his city or not at all.

It is cold in this soundless space and he has never known nothingness like this. He has been filled with vastness for far too long.

….

The Martian believes that the Batman has been able to guard his mind from him through ritual and meditation. He is wrong. All telepaths are wrong.

Bruce never tells him that his mind, his every cell down to the atom is filled. There is not room for intruders. He has been under invasion since birth. He is host to a parasite. He is container to a god. He does not tell J'onn that he suspects that his mind has switched to a different frequency. Telepaths feel people and Tim, Bruce is sure, has made him feel like land. His mind does not work as the mind on a physical being. His mind is forever hidden beneath an intangible entity.

“You control your mind well.” J'onn tells him.

Bruce does not answer. His mind has is chaos. Gotham is control.

_You really need to stop lying darling,_ Tim croons causing Bruce’s mind to….fizz. He thinks this is what it would feel like if his mind was carbonated soda. Pop. Pop. Pop.

_Goes the weasel. _Tim mocks.

….

Clark searches through Gotham, scouring the city from above. His mind is not his own. The Bat lies in the sewers and the tunnels are not lined with lead but he tells Clark they are to explain why the Man of Steel cannot find him. He does not tell him that in Gotham he cannot fall.

_I would not let you._

In Gotham, he is the night. He is a city and the city is him.

_Now that was nearly poetry Bruce. I suppose next you’ll be telling me that we are one?_

“We are.” Bruce replies, a half growl half hiss under his breath. “Tell me that we’re different.”

Tim hums in contentment in the back of Bruce’s mind, and Bruce’s shadow stretches to meet the shadow of the wall, the images twining together like leaves viewed in sunlight.

….

_You know you haven’t gone mad._ Tim reminds him, his voice a soothing balm. A constant. No one can take this from Bruce. He thinks that may be why he guards the knowledge of Tim so fiercely. Why he refuses to let anyone in Gotham. No metas, now and forever. He thinks of their feet on his pavements and his mind roars. He is an intensely private man at best and horrifyingly possessive at worst.

He is sharing his city with its inhabitants but sometimes, irrationally he wants to take it. The whole city, all of Tim, from the bedrock to the smog filled skies, and keep it to himself.

He’s been losing his mind in millimetres for years, this is no different.

_It is very different._

Bruce turns his face to the side, his profile sharp in the daylight but he has no one to turn from. There is nowhere to run.

_Bruce…I…I’m the only thing that never goes away. I’m a constant and I know you don’t have many of those. I’d be more concerned if you weren’t…attached._

He has a duty to himself, to his city. He is the knight and Gotham is his sovereign. He never knew how right he was to believe so until Tim.

…

_I know you._

Bruce has never heard sweeter words in his lifetime. They feel like, I love you. They feel like, I know your pain. They feel like. I forgive you. It’s okay.

_It’s okay._ Tim tells him. _Everything you feel is okay._

He should not need permission but Tim, Gotham is his sovereign. It feels like absolution.

….

He feels fingers on his back as he sleeps and low steady thrum of Gotham in his bloodstream. This is how he falls asleep.

….

She had green eyes when she came to his bed. He can’t even remember her name but her eyes flashed blue and her mouth twisted into a dark smile as she asked, “Did you miss me darling?” in a voice that sounded different but felt the same.

Her hand took his as he followed her up the stairs, and down a path she had never seen before. The person currently dictating her actions had watched this house built from the beginning. Tomorrow Bruce will consider the morality of fucking someone’s body while that body is possessed by another being. He will consider consent, and he knows that he will find himself guilty but for tonight he wants this too badly to let it go.

Her body is too soft, too human for her eyes, and her smile, but he falls apart under her hands anyway. Her thighs grip his as she rocks herself above him, her eyes glowing under fluttering lashes. Bright slits of blue in the dark.

In the aftermath her hands stroke his cheeks and it’s Tim who tells him, “She would have slept with you regardless. Well, she would have tried to.”

Bruce nods, his face obscured but the hand on his face can feel him move. They both know that he has never touched another. They know that tonight was the first time.

Ra’s always suspected that Bruce had taken a vow of chastity alongside the mission. Bruce never told him that every touch felt like a betrayal to someone he never knew, and someone he had known forever all at once.

….

Every night Brucie Wayne goes home with another woman, man, both or any combination of attractive, willing companion. All of them are beautiful and all of them tell stories about Brucie’s “prowess”. They remember an experience with a handsome man who knew what to do with his hands._ God _those hands and that mouth. It was enough to make a woman cry.

They never remember the scars. They never remember their bodies moving without their knowledge or the way the man nearly cried the first time they kissed his palms. They remember only what Tim lets them, and Tim has always been the jealous kind.


	3. Your Body Is A Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim is closer to Bruce in age and a tattoo artist. They end up together for reasons. 
> 
> *some of the things in this chapter are impossible. I also don't know that much about tattooing so...*shrugs*

The man walking into the store is large and heavy set. His suit costs more than the building. Brucie Wayne has come to one of the best, if most morally dubious places in Gotham. The shop is tucked between a convenience store which has been robbed six times in the past four days and a Laundromat which is really a brothel. Tim wants to know who gave him the address, but money in Gotham is worth more than anything. He knows how Bruce Wayne of all people ended up here.

Tim’s feet are propped up on the front desk, the magazine in his hands some teen beat creation with the latest boy band on its cover. Other than a quick flick of the eyes to scan the door he makes no move towards Wayne. He’s not a secretary and he sees no reason to behave as one.

Honestly, they ran the last secretary out ages ago. He couldn’t handle all of the “stress”. Tim has told his boss that the shop needs to stop hiring high school kids. Not that the fucker cared. He was off in a Russian prison learning all about gang tattoos and how to piss in sub zero temperatures. Fucker. No, Tim wasn’t bitter about that, at all.

“Excuse me.” Bruce starts, speaking to a young man in torn up black jeans. They’re tucked into black lace up boots, and cinched at his waist with a braided black belt. The teen, no older than seventeen wears a faded grey t-shirt like it’s designer, the sleeves rolled up slightly, an image of an antique bicycle on his chest. A bubble of obnoxiously pink bubble gum spills from his lips.

Pop.

Bruce watches the teen stare at him from the top of the magazine cover, his mouth pushing the gum back against his teeth. Black hair and glacially blue eyes consider him, and a single finely arched eyebrow raises in question.

“I’m here to get a tattoo.”

The young boy does not look impressed. His fingers tapping at the sides of the magazine. A light exhale leaves the boy’s mouth and he removes his feet from the front desk. Sitting up Bruce can see his hands fully. His right is bare but his left is covered with intricate designs that remind the elder man less of sailor tattoos, and more of watercolour.

Interlocking flowers in various shades spill across milk pale skin like bruises. They are somehow transparent and layered, the stems and branches, leaves and petals, twining like living organisms. In the spaces between Bruce can make out beetles and other such insects. They are few but their presence adds to the delicacy of the design.

The teen places the magazine on top of the desk carelessly and turns, raising his bare arm and motioning Bruce to follow him, another bubble rising from his mouth.

The backroom Bruce is led to is clean but eclectic. Every inch of wall is not covered in wallpaper but carries posters of designs, and cutouts of what appear to be members of a boy band. The chair he’s led to is soft and utilitarian. The teen shuffles through a cupboard off to the side for a clipboard and a pen.

….

“Have you been immunized against hepatitis, and tetanus recently?” Tim asks taking the seat across from Bruce, the clipboard balanced on his lap.

“Pardon me?” Bruce asks.

Tim waits.

“I, yes I have been.” Batman can not contract tetanus. He’s been though too many sewers not to take extra precautions.

“Do you have any medical problems such as heart disease, allergies, diabetes, skin disorders or anything else that may be an issue?”

“No.”

“Any open wounds or lacerations over the area of skin which you would like tattooed?”

“No.” This time. The wounds had healed fully last week.

“Do you have medical insurance in the case of an infection?”

“Yes.” Bruce replies. He could have bought a hospital if he wanted to. In fact he had bought a hospital. Three of them.

“Do you have an idea of what you would like, or a sketch? If you do not, we can provide you a few books to look through.” The young man sounds like he’s reading from a script. He probably is. Bruce’s eyes remain drawn to his left hand, the flowers all cool muted tones with splashes of reds and darker violet.

“I would like the Gotham Skyline, on my right leg.”

Tim leans backs. “How large?”

Bruce smiles enigmatically. “However large it needs to be.”

“No back piece?”

“Would that be better?”

The pen in Tim’s hand taps against the clipboard in consideration. “Maybe. Depending on the size that could be anywhere from two thousand to four thousand.”

“Money is not a concern.”

Tim hums lightly and sighs. “Would you like to see sample work done by our artists?”

“I’d like the same person who did your arm to do my tattoo.”

“Hmmm, fine. Do you have any vision for what your tattoo needs to look like or do you want me to do a mock up before hand?”

Bruce’s eyes widened slightly, “You did your own tattoo?” Of course he did.

Tim’s smile is hard. “I couldn’t trust anyone else not to mess it up. Come back in a week and I’ll have the designs ready.”

Bruce feels his pants tighten imperceptibly. He’ll be back next week. For one reason or another.

….

“Are you sure about this?” Tim drawled, thick sterile needle attached to a machine. The outline had already been formed.

Bruce sighed, “Is there any point asking now or are you doing this for your own amusement?”

Tim shrugged, fully knowing that the older man could not see him move. “Fine, but you’re the one who wanted this.” Pressing the needle to the large back under his hands Tim brought Gotham to life. The scars melted under city lines, and flesh became industry. “You’ll have to come back again. I can’t do this all in one sitting.”

Bruce grunted in reply.

….

Looking at his back Bruce traced the lines of Gotham with his eyes. Layers upon layers of buildings new, and old turned his shoulders into a canvas. Rolling his shoulders Bruce smiled. He could think of no greater way to pay tribute.

….

Walking into the shop Bruce smiled at Tim whose feet were perpetually on the front desk. “I believe I owe you dinner Mr. Drake.” He tells the younger man.

Four sessions, each of them over eight hours in length had built a bond between them. The pale, flower wreathed nymph, had proven far too…irresistible for the Bat.

Tim closed his magazine and swayed towards the older man, his eyes half lidded and bored. His mouth however, quirked up in a half smile. “Mr. Wayne I think I’ll have to take you up on that offer.”

Bruce offered his arm to the slighter figure and led him out the door.

The shop would close early.

….

“I never did meet your boss.” Bruce mentions.

Tim smiles and replies, “He’s only here two months out of the year. Last I heard he was in Japan cursing them for…everything. He’s trying to learn a different style.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I can’t go there anymore. The last time I went I almost didn’t come back.”

“Why?"Bruce is fairly sure that he doesn’t want to know.

"Shizuka was very….attached to my presence. He felt upset when I tried to leave the country.”

Bruce does not ask if Tim is speaking about Shizuka Haruto leader of one of the largest crime syndicates in Japan. He’s almost completely certain that, that is exactly who Tim is talking about. He’ll have Batman make a trip to Japan soon. Perhaps it was time for Batman to go…global.

….

The first time Bruce sees Tim naked is the first time he realizes that the flowers don’t stop at Tim’s arm. They spread down his back, falling like petals over milk.

“Who did this?” He murmurs, his mouth tracing each individual flower. Tim’s breath hitches as he replies, “My teacher. He finished it for me. Don’t stop.”

….

Dick doesn’t realize that his adopted father has a tattoo until he’s twenty. It’s the first time he catches Bruce without his shirt on, and the ink of his back stops Dick in his tracks.

“Woah.” He exclaims. "B, when did you get that?” Gotham reigns supreme on the dark knights skin. Dick did not know this.

“You do realize that Tim is a tattoo artist?”

And yes, Dick had known his second father was not exactly a vigilante, as much as a shop owner but he didn’t know that he inked Bruce. _Bruce,_ of all people.

…..“You told me I couldn’t get a tattoo until I turned twenty-one. I thought you were all against them. Like no doing unnecessary things to your body, and all that, and now you have one and you’ve had one for years and it’s not even fair!”

“You do realize that Tim is a tattoo artist?” Bruce repeats.

Dick lets out a long low exhale, “I’m so getting Tim to ink me up. Like right now, and you can’t stop me because your back is Gotham.”

…

Dick pulled at the bottom of Tim’s shirt like the overgrown toddler he truly was on the inside, “But, but, but Tiiiiiiiiim.” He whined, “Why noooot?”

Tim sighed and removed Dick’s hand from his t-shirt, the cotton crinkling then smoothing out as pale blue fabric was pulled from grasping hands, “You’re not even of legal kid, come back when you can drink.”

Dick, already on the other side of a desk that was probably older than him pouted, as he placed his arms over Tim’s shoulders. The older man was sitting down with his feet up, a sight that had become as familiar to Dick, as Bruce pulling on the cowl.

When he wasn’t training to be Robin, Bruce would take him to the shop and leave him there to play. Sometimes Bruce would stay. Other times they would all leave the shop and visit the zoo, if it was Bruce planning, or some oddly inappropriate store, if Tim had control for the day. His fondest memories were of Bruce and Tim bickering as he ate questionable food from street vendors who didn’t legally exist.

Tim taught him that some of the best food in Gotham came from the seediest places. That the alleyways weren’t just places of crime, but places that had little boutiques and shops and people. Thriving in the underbelly there lived more than filth.

Bruce taught Dick justice and how to see in the dark, but Tim was the one who taught him what daylight meant in the city. What life meant.

“I turn twenty-one in six months, can’t you start now? By the time you finish I’ll be way old enough and it’s not like I can’t get a tattoo legally. I turned eighteen two years ago.” Dick pleaded, his head on top of Tim’s. It didn’t matter that he had grown taller than the other man, he had seen Tim cut Bruce down to size too many times to consider him anything but strong. Strong enough to bear Dick’s weight for a short while at the very least.

“If you want a tattoo that badly you can go to someone else.” Tim offered cruelly, smiling as he flipped through a magazine, ignoring Dick’s weight on his shoulders. The threat was implicit. The though of what Tim would do if Dick actually went to someone else was deeply unpleasant.

“Eh, hehe, no,” Dick backtracked sheepishly, raising one hand to ruffle the hair at the back of his neck, "I don’t want anyone else to do it. Just you.”

Tim did not appear appeased but his smile was less threatening and his grip on the magazine was lighter. Dick breathed a sigh of relief inwardly.

“I just don’t see why I have to wait. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to get much taller or bigger in six months.”

“Dick.” Tim warned, as he turned a page of Cosmo harshly, the face of an open mouthed model waving him goodbye as he moved on to yet another open mouthed model pouting with faux sex appeal while holding some form of forest creature in an attempt to be “edgy”.

“I know, it’s a rule but still, I mean Bruce has a tattoo and he never even told me. It’s like he’s someone else and I didn’t even know that. How does he even hide it? I’ve been thinking back to when I was Robin and I don’t understand how I never even saw the thing. It would serve him right if I got a tattoo and he didn’t know about it -

"Dick.” The furious page turning continued.

“But Tim. It would, and you hate it just as much as I do when he hides things, you hate it more. Help me do this please?”

Tim slammed the magazine closed, rolled it and raised his arm to smack Dick in the face with the formerly interesting reading material causing Dick to let out a yelp of surprise. Dick let go of Tim’s shoulders and grabbed his nose, allowing Tim to turn in his delightful spiny chair and face his pseudo adopted child. Tim had wanted to quote the sex tips at Bruce as they made love. the expression of sheer horror on the man’s face would have been enough to make Tim happy.

“Richard John Grayson. You are not getting a tattoo until you turn twenty-one. You’re not getting one because I said so, because if I wanted to I could tell you that you’re not getting a tattoo until the first blue moon after the year of your twenty-first birthday and you’d still have to listen to me because I’d be the one inking you, you little brat.”

Dick pouted, staring down at the older man with sad, wide eyes.

Tim snorted lightly, “Try that on Bruce. You know that face never worked on me. Do you even know what you want?”

Dick perked up sensing weakness. “A Robin.” He chirped.

Tim groaned, palming his face with his hand. “No.” He refuted.

Dick would not be deterred. “But it’s perfect. It’s very symbolic. I though you’d appreciate that.”

Tim rose to his feet running one hand through slightly long hair, his wristbands moving as brown leather met black hair. “What I appreciate is your identity remaining secret, and you’re still not getting ink until you turn twenty-one.”

“But Tim.” Dick spluttered.

Tim laughed and hit Dick lightly on the stomach with the magazine as he passed the younger man on his way to the fridge in the back.

“Can I at least get a piercing then?"Dick asked.

Tim groaned and resisted the urge to shoot a certain Robin that wouldn’t stop pestering him.

….

"Your brat wants ink.” Tim told Bruce as he laid half on top of the larger man. He had been right. The Cosmo sex tips had caused Bruce to form a delightfully pained express as he related his findings to the man whilst riding him like a cowboy. Or cowgirl. Tim wasn’t very picky.

“You want to talk about this now?” Bruce asks looking down at the man he spent over a third of his life with. Warmth bloomed in the gut at the thought.

“Yes.” Tim confirmed, fingers trailing through the hairs that led from Bruce’s bellybutton to cock. The mess had been cleaned moments before, a wet washrag on the floor beside the bed a testament to their activities.

“Did you tell him he wasn’t allowed to get get one until he turned twenty-one?”

Tim cocked an eyebrow.

“Of course you did.”

“I’m more surprised that he didn’t know about Gotham.” Gotham being the tattoo on Bruce’s back, which was quite understandably an image of their city, as rendered by Tim.

“It never came up.” Bruce shrugged, rolling on top of the slighter man, peppering his neck and chest with kisses.

“Are you trying to distract me with sex?"Tim asked, even as his hands moved to brace themselves on Bruce’s shoulders.

"I don’t know,"Bruce murmured, "Is it working?”

…..

Dick bounced back and forth, rolling from the tips of his toes back to balls of his feet, “It’s my birthday today.”

Tim gazed from his desk unimpressed but ruefully amused, “Yes it is.”

“So.” Dick said.

“So.” Tim mimicked.

“Tiiiim.”

Tim stood, “I know brat. Come on, we’ll get you ready.”

Dick practically vibrated in excitement as he followed Tim into the back of the shop. When he was younger he always loved Tim’s tattoo’s, the flowers that moved from his arm to his back. The endless layers and colours always distracted him. “Can the birds be coloured?” He asked, even though he had asked the same question repeatedly for the past few months.

Tim chose not the answer, instead leading Dick his seat. They had finalized the design after Dick’s stubborn insistence on having a robin on his body. They had compromised.

Dick wouldn’t be getting one bird, he’d be getting a flock.

From two inches below his armpit all the way down to his hips, trailing onto his parts of his chest and back, swarms of birds would be forever commemorated. A single robin among them. Tim had asked for the places that Dick remembered as a child and from them he created a menagerie spanning countries.

The Romani in Dick appreciated the migratory nature of something so permanent.

….

“Why did you pick flowers?” Dick asks, as he’s always asked.

And as always Tim replies with a different answer. "I wanted something beautiful. “They never wilt. I miss spring. They were the flowers in my wedding bouquet. They were my mothers favourites. They were from my father’s funeral. They’re the souls of everyone I’ve ever loved.”

The explanations were numerous. Dick believed each and everyone of them. Taking off his shirt he made himself comfortable as possible. It would be a long day.


	4. Doctor I Am Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Meet Doctor Tim. Tim, like Barbie has had many careers.

Tim looked at the man in his bed, more like glared, really. “So,” he starts, “you were in a polo accident?” His disbelief cannot be contained in mere words.

Bruce Wayne looks back at him with an expression that would have put a comatose patient to shame, he appeared to have suddenly lost all capability of conscious thought. His brain was now made of the equivalent of banana yogurt.

“Polo, is a very violent sport.”

Tim is going to find the biggest needle in the hospital and stab his dear, beloved patient in neck. Either that or he’ll give him syphilis. Somehow…it was Gotham, how hard would it be to find a hooker who was infected, even in this day and age? He’s pretty sure he could find the actual bubonic plague, in Gotham if he looked hard enough.

“I hope you realize that I’m not stupid, I also want you to know that you don’t have to tell me why you have three fractured ribs. I really don’t want to know. I also don’t want you to feed me some bullshit about polo. Doctor. I. Am. Hurt, is good enough. In fact, it is now mandatory.”

Brucie pouted, “But doctor, you don’t understand, in polo you ride horses, and well, I fell down, you see there was this delightful -”

Tim raises his hand, “No. Fuck no. You were not injured in polo. You were not, so shut up and stop pinching my nurses. That’s harassment.”

“Does that mean I can pinch you instead?” Bruce leers.

Tim leaves the room. Surprisingly this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

…

“Doctor, I am hurt.” Bruce mimes perfectly, his hand gripping his side. The hospital is closing for the night, save for the ER which Mr. Wayne did not go to, the prick, but at least he’s not spewing bullshit about polo.

Tim groans and leads the older man to a private room. Three gunshot wounds in very interesting places, and one stymied explanation about a horse stepping on a shot gun that was suspiciously left on the polo field, which caused it to go off, later, his dear patient had been stitched back together.

“This is going to be a thing isn’t it?” Tim mentions as he takes off his latex gloves and double checks the bandages.

Brucie smirks, “I have no idea what you mean doctor.”

…

Richard Grayson Wayne, is just as bad as his adoptive father, “I fell.” Is his excuse, his eyes wide and innocent as he looks shiftily around the operating room.

“Please shut up now.” Tim insists.

…

Damian Wayne is somehow worse, “I have injured myself.” He looks at Tim, like Tim is something on the bottom of his shoe, Tim smushes his cheeks in revenge and puts him through the type of physical that he once put soldiers through a lifetime ago. A brusque, commanding thing that left no room for objection. It was efficient and by the end of it, the brat was as good as new, his father smiling at the doorway.

“Polo, you know.” Bruce leers.

“I will give you syphilis.” Tim responds calmly as he helps the younger boy to a set of crutches and hands him a lollipop.

Damian looks at the thing like it’s diseased, “I am not a child-”

“You will take the candy, you will eat it. You will like it.” Tim demands. Surprisingly the demon brat listens, plopping the sweet into his mouth mutinously.

Tim grins darkly as he places a kiss on the hell-beasts forehead cooing, “Good boy.”

Damian blushes to the roots of his hair and shuffles his feet as he leaves, his father’s eyes wide.

…

Tim rushes into Wayne manor pissed as all hell. An elderly gentleman had come to the hospital stating that Master Bruce had injured himself and required a home visit. Tim packed as much surgical equipment into the car as he could.

He does not ask why Superman is there, he does not ask why Robin is there, and Nightwing and Red Hood, he operates instead.

He leaves.

…

“You should stay at the manor.” Damian demands after his checkup. “You are clearly the family doctor and as such you should stay with us for expedience.”

Tim raises and eyebrow, “You’re not my only patients. You do know that right?”

Damian pouts, just like his father, “We are more important.”

Tim presses a kiss to the younger ones forehead and sends him away with a treat.

...

Robin shuffles his feet, Kid Flash in Superboy’s arms, “Doctor, he’s hurt.” Tim directs them to a table and groans. It’s going to be such a long night.

...

“Doctor. I. Am. Hurt.” Four little words, that have become the bane of Tim’s existence, because honestly, what was his life when Superman, fucking Superman, came into his home and asked for medical treatment?

“Excuse me doctor, but I’m hurt.” Are the first words out of big and blue’s mouth.

The first words out of Tim’s are, “Son of a bitch.” and then, “Float down onto the couch, and tell where it hurts.”

It turns out what hurt was a set of tiny green splinters that had lodged themselves into, “Call me Kal,” Superman’s leg. Tiny, minuscule splinters which were collected into a small tube.

“Could you give those to Bruce Wayne, please?” The hero asks, his smile much more relaxed than it was a few minutes ago.

Tim nods, before offering, “Would you like something to drink? Some food perhaps?” Never let it be said that his mother didn’t raise him without manners.

“Oh, I couldn’t impose.” Are the words the older man replies with but his eyes disagree. Feed us, they plea. Feed us many things.

“It’s not an imposition at all.” Tim lies. He wants to sleep, his twenty hour shift had not been kind and he’s still coming in tomorrow, but it’s Superman. He’s pretty sure not feeding him would be a crime against his country or something.

It takes an entire roast chicken, and a bag of potatoes to feed the big guy. Who knew?

…

“Er..forgive my imposition but I seem to be injured.” Oh. Fuck. No.

Martian Manhunter. Key words being Martian. As in not human, as in the fuck does Tim know about alien biology, and yes there had been Superman but at least he wasn’t green!

“You are aware that I know as much about Martian biology as I do the inner workings of sea mammals?” He actually knows more about the inner workings of sea mammals.

The green man nods gravely, “I see.” He then makes to leave and Tim groans, “Stop it. I’ll try. Okay. I will try. I’m just warning you that I know jack shit about your body, so come here and explain what I need to do.”

It turns out that Martians keep their hearts in their right legs which, fuck you J'onn, fuck you sideways Tim does not know how to operate minor heart-in-leg surgery, and no he does not know how to treat it as no big deal, because apparently the green man has three hearts which are not actually hearts.

Tim picks it up fairly quickly, but still. It was not what he expected. At all.

…

“I have come seeking healing.” Wonder Woman claims, her arm bleeding.

At this point Tim is fairly sure the League is fucking with him, sending people who don’t actually need a doctor so that they can laugh at Tim’s face. He doesn’t like it, but he’ll play along.

“It is a most wondrous thing to meet a male healer.” The princess states. The Amazon princess.

One day Tim is going to be kidnapped and when he is, he’s going to blame them. All of them.

..

“Ah, good doctor, I am in need of your assistance.” A man in a gold and green cloak, flocked by ninja’s, purrs.

To Tim’s credit, he doesn’t even blink, “Please have a seat.” He offers.

“I am-” The man starts but Tim does not want to know. He’s fairly sure he’s about the treat A Very Bad Man, capital letters included, but he took an oath. He swore that he would heal and by all that is sacred he will. Even if those he happens to heal are Bad Men with capital letters.

“No.” He cuts the man off, “You’re about to lie about what you do, and I know you’re probably not a good person, but I would like plausible deniability so kindly shut up and let me set that arm.”

Ra’s smiles like a shark, “You are a most interesting doctor, perhaps I could offer you a position?”

Tim does not want this man to offer him, any “position” so he replies with a simple “No.” And sends tall dark and creepy on his way.

...

Damian shuffled towards the Doctor. “I do not understand why you will not agree?” He pouts. Tim worked on the stitches on Dick’s leg as he replied.

“You know I have other patients.”

“Grandfather is planning to steal you.” Damian tells him.

“I have no idea who your Grandfather is.” Tim knots the end of the black surgical thread, Dick is blissfully passed out on the gurney. Wiping down the excess blood he watches Damian continue to pout from the corner of his eye.

“Ra’s -”

“No.” Tim interrupts. “I don’t want to know who your Grandfather is.”

“The man in the green cloak. The one with the beard. He is planning on kidnapping you.” Damian amends.

“One of you will probably rescue me.” Tim takes off his gloves and washes his hands, making sure to scrub in-between his fingers.

“That is not the point. You would be safer at the Manor.” Damian argues.

“I would still have to go out to work.” Tim points out.

“No you would not. You would no longer be working for the hospital, and riff-raff would no longer bother you in your sleeping hours.”

“I assume you’re talking about the others who visit me?” Tim asks. “What makes you think they won’t come to Wayne Manor?”

“They would not dare.” Damian mutters darkly.

“I’m afraid I can’t take you up on that offer. Go shake your brother awake, he’s sleeping. I only numbed his leg.”

Damian made to punch the elder.

“Don’t hit him.”

The fist turned into a finger which poked Dick in the side. It was a rough poke between the ribs, but it served to make the elder twitch.

“Grayson.” Damian barked out, smacking the prone man’s belly with an open palm.

“Gah.” Dick jerked up and sulked in Damian’s general direction, “Be more gentle when you wake a guy up lil D. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“You live to give me an ulcer. Consider us even.” Damian snarked. Tim shoves a lollipop in the youngest ones mouth before he could continue his spiel. Dick opens his mouth to laugh only to find the space occupied by yet another flavoured treat. Sour apple in flavour. “Ish goo.” Dick slurred around the hard candy.

Tim passed him a set of crutches and pointed to the door. It was always to late to deal with this shit.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Meet Your Beautiful Grandmother](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20294686) by [Yumitheboring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yumitheboring/pseuds/Yumitheboring)


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